


When you try your best, but you don't succeed

by justonebigclusterfuck



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: Angst, Comfort, Established Relationship, Freewood - Freeform, GTA AU, M/M, OT6, Romance, Team Love 'n' Stuff, angsty, angsty!freewood, love 'n' stuff, love and stuff, sorta - Freeform, team love and stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-29
Updated: 2015-08-29
Packaged: 2018-04-17 21:18:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4681838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justonebigclusterfuck/pseuds/justonebigclusterfuck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When things go wrong, Gavin falls apart and Ryan is left to piece him together again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When you try your best, but you don't succeed

Predictably, there are bad ways and good ways to kick off a heist.

For starters, arguing is never a good way to go. If there’s an argument in the crew then it usually results in choosing sides, because not choosing sides is always considered significantly worse. Those sorts of heists only go one way and there’s always a lot of friendly fire (but only in warning) and Michael, more often than not, ends up blowing shit up. They also almost always end with Ryan getting fed up and going on a solo killing spree.

Most of the time he’s successful.

Injuries are another bad way to start things. The one time Ray tried to start a heist with a broken leg, the rest of the crew ended up spending most of the time worrying over him while he was on his hell-bent mission to be helpful. They were so focused on making sure Ray didn’t make his leg worse that they completely forgot about their actual plan.

As was to be expected, that heist was a complete failure.

But, despite their many years together, they’d never started a heist with someone crying.

Although that was apparently going to change.

“I can’t go out there, Rye.”

They had ten minutes. Ten fucking minutes until they were supposed to be walking out the front door and getting into their personal vehicles and Ryan had thought that everything was going peachy. He had done his paint and gotten ready and everything had been going so smoothly until he was starting at the sound of Gavin’s timid voice breaking the silence. And he looked- Well… wrecked was how he looked.

His eyes were rimmed from tears and Ryan swore that had never seen them redder – and he’d seen him that time Geoff had dared him to eat a hot pepper whole. His arms were snaked around his legs and he was completely curled up on himself, as if he were shielding himself from the outside world.

From the crew.

Ryan probably wouldn’t have noticed him if he hadn’t spoken. There was a chance that he would have walked straight past the male without once glancing his way. And maybe that was what he wanted. Maybe that would have been better, because seeing Gavin now almost broke him. Just looking at Gavin in this fragile state left Ryan floundering in the middle of an ocean because he had to make a choice – he had to choose a side and he’d thought that he’d already chosen.

After the last heist, they’d all been more than a little pissed off with Gavin. He’d completely fucked up and almost gotten them all killed because he’d been taking selfies instead of paying attention. ‘But I thought it’d be top if I got the Cargobob in the background,’ he’d insisted and it had been great. It’d been great for the cops when their look out had been too distracted to notice them pulling up.

So, Ryan could have just left. The others probably wouldn’t have expected anything more of him, not when this was all Gavin’s fault in the first place.

But he just couldn’t.

Not now.

He’d never seen Gavin in such a state and it was the desperate look on his face that won him over. It was the I-just-need-to-talk-to-someone look that had Ryan shutting his door and dropping his things onto his covers before he was making his way around the bed to drop to the floor in front of Gav.

The smile was worth it, regardless of how weak it was.

“They all hate me.” Gavin sniffed, hand rubbing gently against his nose before he was dropping it into his lap. He didn’t look up at Ryan for confirmation. He didn’t need to – Ryan’s silence said everything.

“It wasn’t like I meant to! I just-” A shake of his head followed before he was just letting it fall again. The wave of pity was engulfing Ryan before he could stop it and he had to restrain himself from just reaching out and pulling Gavin towards him. He knew that the male thrived off hugs, off closeness – they all did really – but they were supposed to be getting ready to go, not crying on bedroom floors.

“I wish I could be more like you,” Gavin whispered beneath his breath and it was so silent that Ryan wasn’t even sure that he was supposed to hear it. Gavin didn’t turn his head up to acknowledge either him or the words but Ryan had heard them. He’d heard them and he couldn’t just ignore them because Gavin had fucked up. He had almost killed all of them. But he was also one of them and it was with that thought flesh in his mind that he grabbed at Gavin’s hands and pulled them slowly away from his face before tugging him forwards slightly.

The wild look of happiness that flickered across Gavin’s face was beauty in it’s simplest form. He’d do anything to see that look on Gav’s face; he’d figured that out months ago.

It was more of a flopping movement than anything else, but one moment Gavin had been curled up alone and the next he was collapsed in Ryan’s arms and Ryan was holding him. He was rubbing gently at his back and letting out small noises of comfort as Gavin began to sob freely and it was both a terrible and great feeling.

It took about two minutes for the tears to subside and a minute further for the sniffles to finally stop, but eventually Ryan was able to free Gavin. When the male sat back, his face was worse than before. It was tinged with a permanent red glow and his eyes were wet and bloodshot.

Basically he still looked a mess but at least he was smiling now.

Ryan would count that as a win.

“Thanks, Rye.”

Ryan nodded and made a move to rise but stopped when Gavin remained put. He quirked an eyebrow and Gavin shrugged slightly, arms wrapping around himself in comfort.

“I’ll just cock everything up if I go with you all again.”

And he looked so serious. He sounded so serious. He spoke with utter conviction and there wasn’t a flicker of any betraying emotions in his features. Ryan couldn’t believe he believed that, whole-heartedly believed that.

“You’re not going to,” Ryan reassured him but Gavin just shook his head again and Ryan wasn’t sure there was anything he could do. He couldn’t force him to go and he couldn’t think of anything to say that would convince him otherwise, which left- He couldn’t just go and leave him here.

He glanced around quickly, searching for inspiration, which was when he spotted the small black bag on his bed.

Then it was his turn to smile.

“C'mere.” He beckoned Gavin towards him and, once he was seated directly in front of him, he slid a hand over his face to close his eyes.

Then he got to work.

The white went on first, forming a base to the entire thing, and the red swallowed swiftly after. Ryan had done this so many times before that he was able to apply it flawlessly but applying it on someone else was a lot different to applying his own mask of protection.

Gavin had let out a small noise a second or two after Ryan had started, but after that he had fallen completely silent and just let Ryan work. Ryan couldn’t recall a time he’d ever been this quiet.

By the time he’d applied the black, the two of them had been in there at least ten minutes and he knew the others must be going crazy, desperate to leave for the heist, but he didn’t rush. He still took care as he added the last few lines of paint around Gavin’s eyes before he was drawing back.

“There.” And when Gavin’s eyes opened, it was the strangest thing Ryan had ever seen. He’d seen his face many times, but looking at the way Gavin’s green eyes popped and his lips. The paint framed all of Gavin’s features, marring them slightly but just making them stand out even more to Ryan who knew them so well. Was this how it felt to be on the other side? To be looking at Ryan when he wore his paint?

He stood up smoothly, grabbing at Gavin’s discarded mask and passing it to him before offering out a hand, to help him stand.

Then he waited.

And Gavin’s wide eyes turned down to the mask before looking up at Ryan again and Ryan could almost see the situation turning over in the back of his mind before Gavin was sliding the mask over his head and blocking Ryan’s view.

Then Gavin was reaching to catch onto Ryan’s hand, letting him pull him to his feet, and suddenly they were chest to chest, face to face and Gavin’s eyes were twinkling despite the red tint.

“Let’s go.”

**Author's Note:**

> As always, feel free to leave me prompts on my tumblr - justonebigclusterfuck - and I'll probably just be posting one shots until uni because work is too busy and my schedule isn't fixed enough for me to focus on writing an actual long fic.


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